Tools for deciding on a Learning Management System

Selecting a learning management system (or classroom management system) is not an easy task.  Fortunately, this is a task that was done for me at my school.  We use Google Classroom as a CMS and I am using Moodle as an LMS for my online course.

I was not involved in the selection process.  However, I am sure that the administrators in the county office examined the bullet points below in making their decision.  (These bullet points come from the Georgia Teacher Open Online training website.)

• Needs Analysis – define the goals of acquiring an LMS for the organization

• Requirements Gathering Process- meet with stakeholders from users to the implementation team to create a thorough rubric of requirements that meet the organizations needs. Be sure to identify items that are necessities on the list at the end of the process and the items that can be given up as needed via a ranking system.

• Vendor Identification – identify the potential vendors that match needs and requirements. Will this be an open-source solution or vendor?

• Request Information – request information from the vendors identified to clarify that the needs and requirements needed are in line with their product offerings.

• Request for Proposal – request proposals from the organization’s top vendors that met the requirements as identified in the gathering process to identify pricing models. In addition, to clarify that the organization’s top requirements match with vendors product offerings.

• Demonstrations – Schedule demonstrations and/or request a sandbox environment (sample learning environments) that stakeholders can use, test, and become comfortable with. Make sure to understand the product offerings and how it correlates to the organization’s stated requirements.

• Vendor Selection – After the team of stakeholders has gone through the steps above, analyze the match-up between the requirements gathered in the beginning of the process to the product offerings of the vendors.

Looking at the top providers for CMS and LMS, there are a number of names that I recognize.   Edmodo, Moodle, Blackboard, and Google Classroom stand out as the top names to me.  Many teachers in the system used Edmodo as a classroom management system before our school decided to use Google Classroom.  Edmodo is open source and teachers or school systems could use it for free.  Our system decided to use Google Classroom instead.  I suspect that is because google could offer more to the system.  Google provides email service to the system - all student and faculty emails are ran through Google.  This is a huge benefit and a weight off the tech department.  Classroom is a simple app, but it is effective and easy to use.

I used Blackboard in college in its early days.  It has been around a long time.  Our system decided to use Moodle for a LMS.  I'm not sure of the drawbacks and benefits, but it is adequate for our needs.  I imagine that the selection was based on price and service.